After a long stretch of bad news for a company whose software once turned words such as “PDA” and “Palm Pilot” into household names, PalmSource is finally showing signs that maybe, just maybe, it can field the right product, at the right time, to turn its luck around.
Too little … too late ?
Oooh, they are still putting Linux onto Palm PDA’s? /me sells crappy old Zodiac. I can’t wait to get a chance and use one
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Just get a zaurus.. Will probably have better build quality and feature set than any linux power Palms.. You could probably even compile copilot to work on the zaurus; thus having all your palm apps
Hmm, sounds good, I’ll look into that more. But Zaruses are soooo expensive compared to Palms. I’ll check the site out though
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You’ be surprised about the cost. The C-1000 Zaurus can be had for under $450 USD right now. Sure, it lacks wifi (but easily remedied with a cf wifi card), but it can do so much more than the “boring” Palm Lifedrive.
The biggest advantage of Palm devices is the ability to run hundreds of thousands of PDA-centric applications and games.
This is the same advantage that causes people to use Windows despite all the reliability and security problems with Windows.
Sharp dropped the zaurus. It’s a piece of unsupported metal, and for something like a smart phone that has to connect to a bunch of services, then, it’s a pretty big drawback.
Sharp dropped the zaurus. It’s a piece of unsupported metal,
http://www.dynamism.com/zaurus
” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT3908389811.html
The close for bold was broken by OSNews. The broken links should have been;
http://www.dynamism.com/sl-c3000/index.shtml
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT3908389811.html
Sharp dropped the zaurus. It’s a piece of unsupported metal,
http://www.dynamism.com/zaurus
” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT3908389811.html
Given that it took a team of unpaid developers only a few months to get DSLinux running on DSes, why is it taking so long (2 years!) for Palm to get ‘a desktop’ running on their own (for them fully documented) devices?
Well, there is this little thing called backwards compatability that the DSLinux developers don’t have to worry about and Palm does. Or do you expect Palm salesmen to say to some big corporation.
“Hey, our new Palm’s can’t run all of the Palm apps you have purchased and custom built for your employees, but OMFG, it runs Linux!!!!”
Never mind the fact DSLinux isn’t used by large corporations, whereas Palm products are, so they have to be completely stable.
Also, I doubt Palm’s customers are sitting around bummed out because their Palm handheld is running the PalmOS kernel and not the Linux Kernel.
So why should they rush it exactly?
“Hey, our new Palm’s can’t run all of the Palm apps you have purchased and custom built for your employees, but OMFG, it runs Linux!!!!”
Horse hockey.
First off, in the worst case Linux can run this;
http://www.palmos.com/dev/tools/emulator
1. Do you really think that Palm Source is going to ignore that they have this code and have had it for many years?
2. Techniques like a JIT cross compiler built into the application sync could elmininate the overhead of full emulation and convert the apps at the point of installation.
That said, where’s is Palm Source talking about PalmOS apps even needing to have steps 1 or 2 performed on them at all — let alone an all-out incompatability between current apps and the Linux-based update of the OS?
Linux is a hog for battery consumption. It will be the death of Palm.
Are you talking of the Zaurus having poor battery life?
Why should a Palm worsen its battery life just because it runs Linux instead of PalmOS 5?
It’s mostly about power management, dynamic clock speed adjustment… Linux is perfectly capable of that. And compiling a custom kernel for every handheld wouldn’t be too hard on PalmSource, would it?
Repeat after me: Process before product.
(Or in this case, process before tool.)
Palm can use Linux as a good tool, but it is up to them to make newer products profitable.
Don’t get me wrong; Linux is a great tool and is a good choice for embedded systems including phones/PDAs, car electronics, cameras, network gear (wireless routers), and consumer appliances (Tivo…)
I’m very interested in seeing where they go with Linux…though a hammer, no matter how good it is, doesn’t automatically make someone a carpenter…and even a good carpenter may not make a good house.
PalmPilots are dumb anyway.
PalmPilots are dumb anyway.
To complete your insightful observation, you should have added ‘and are used by faggy gay dudes only’.
After all, you put quite a bit of effort into that gem, and we wouldn’t want it to fail to live up to even higher expectations.
they need a product and they need it asap…
Should of been doing this in the background years ago…
And they should allow users to be able to upgrade from older oses to newer ones….
dont forget solving OS problems like noisy screens…
hardware manufatures *palm* no more dodgy cheap hardware ….
Let’s assume that they come up with the ultimate mobile OS. Will anybody use it?
Nobody seems to be using Palm OS Cobalt… I fail to see how Linux will make things better.
Linux CAN NOT put PalmSource on top.
PalmSource CAN put themselves on top using Linux, but it’s question of their effort.
Sadly, only corporation with effort is MS (and, lately, Apple).
Linux is popular because it is free and it is open source. However, you can’t do Linux hacking on a PDA which cannot program itself.
You will need to do hacking on a PC with Linux/Windows emulator. In my opinion, a PDA is NOT a real computer because it cannot do programming on itself.
A PDA is just a toy for real losers not for real hackers.
is there any good read on palms decision not to use os6?
thx
flo
You will need to do hacking on a PC with Linux/Windows emulator. In my opinion, a PDA is NOT a real computer because it cannot do programming on itself.
You mean, PDA are not self-hosting in sense of dev tools and working environment in general? Mostly true, but it does not meter, you can do some serious hard-core hacking with cross tools. That’s even more old-school that linux on PCs.
Self-hosted hacking platforms are for sissies
wow. you are an idiot. You cna code on palms now with several different languages.. theres pocketC, onboard C, onboard ASM, lua, various basics, tao, etc etc etc. you cna do any kind of ocding you want on a zaurus.
yeah.. definitely cant code on PDAs..
U look at the resource availiable in a PDA and U think U can create good applications on a PDA ?
The reason PDA is dying is because of its limitation.
Changing to a Linux kernal would not make a difference.
The hardware itself suck. A old 386 PC with MS-Dos is more useful than PDA.
<<The hardware itself suck. A old 386 PC with MS-Dos is more useful than PDA.>>
When you can fit an old 386 with ms-dos into your trouser pocket, please let us know.
This was hashed over in a rabid Palm fan site. A representative from PalmSource came in and repeated what I’m about to say here.
PalmSource is looking into replacing the *kernel* with a Linux kernel. The API will not change, PalmOS software will continue to run *natively* and the Palm platform will not run Linux applications. As she pointed out, the kernel’s been replaced three times already in the history of the company, and no one has noticed.
It’s a stability/portability issue. Cobalt was PalmSource’s attempt to leverage BeOS as a PalmOS kernel and it failed for several reasons, but hardware portability (e.g. drivers) was the main one. Linux has an established track record for working with multiple hardware platforms and creating stable drivers.
Palm and PalmSource are both keenly aware that their future is embedded in devices like smartphones, not standalone devices like PDAs, and the diversity of the hardware out there makes a Linux kernel very, very attractive. They need to be able to get a vendor solution to market faster than they did with Qualcomm.
I’ll say it again. The PalmOS platform is not changing. Palm devices will not secretly become Zauruses and only run PalmOS in emulation. The *kernel* is changing (for the fourth time in history).
When Microsoft switched from the 95/98 kernel to the NT kernel, the API remained the same and software remained mostly backwards compatible. Carbonized Classic Mac applications don’t know their API calls are being serviced by UNIX. Considering how less complex the PalmOS is than a desktop platform, this should be even moreso.
It *is* conceivable that PalmSource could do like OS X and later release a completely Linux-based OS with this kernel that runs “classic” PalmOS apps in emulation. But it isn’t what PalmSource is aiming for right now.